Listen to Your Bread
- Fiction
- Publisher: Resource Publications (Wipf and Stock)
- Published: 2021
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Publisher's Description
A tough town like Olean offers a guy only so many job options: sweat in the stench of oil refinery crude, like his immigrant father does, suffer boredom in a factory job, or apprentice in a trade. Icky Haut chooses the latter and works his way up, one crumb at a time, in a commercial bread bakery. Haut loves everything about baking bread: the smell and taste of yeast, the softness of flour rubbed between fingertips, the intense heat of ovens, the anticipation of a loaf's rise, and the comfort of its promise of sustenance. But after his second child is born, he realizes he's been mixing, proofing, shaping, scoring, and baking dough half his life. Is this it? Maybe not . . . but then his great idea to expand the bakery jams him up with his boss, and he's toast. How Haut relies on family and faith to start his own bakery is the center of this real-life, local-guy-makes-good story set in the 1930s and 40s. Haut's boss calls bread the "staff of life" feeding his bottom line; the Hauts are nourished by their faith, and that shift in perspective recasts the story to hope in the "Bread of Life."
Endorsements (6)
“In this beautifully written retelling of her own family’s journey, Dr. Ann Haut shares the hard-earned wisdom and life lessons of baker Edward ‘Icky’ Haut. Wisdom does not come from cheap grace but, rather, from a kind of virtuous, but counter-intuitive, obstinacy—a stubbornness anchored in hope and faith in the ultimate goodness of creation and its Creator. It is not a walk of sugar and spice, even when bread and cookies are its manifestations. It’s messy, uncomfortable, and hard on loved ones, and fraught with pain and disappointment. It is a test of one’s grit, as the author shows, but a test that can be met when we listen to our bread.”
“Food, culture, and entrepreneurship converge in this chronicle of the European immigrant experience in the US. Yes, it is one family’s story in Olean, New York, but it’s also a reminder of the struggles during the Great Depression and World War II. Ann Haut’s conversational writing style in this novelized family history captures the flavor of time and place. Bread offers more than sustenance here—it represents connections to cultural identity, faith, and family.”
“Listen to Your Bread is a story set in the small town of Olean, New York, where a young Icky Haut finds identity and vocation. The story is subtle and empathetic, delving into the community and family ties of love, duty, sympathy, forgiveness, and faith. The grace of plain and ordinary people serves to raise the human spirit for those today who seek to find their center in a more strife-filled and impersonal world.”
“A riveting journey that touches the heart and draws you in from page one . . . Uplifting, witty. . . . A faithful gem you will not be able to put down.”
“Listen to Your Bread is the delicious account of a baker’s life set in the world of commercial bread baking. But it’s also about gathering around the bread of life in the sacrament of Communion. Through many obstacles, their enduring Christian faith enables this three-generation family to rise to the task. This is more than a book about comfort food, because in the end, both our bellies and our spirits are fed—I’m left hungering for more.”
“Listen to Your Bread is an engaging and humorously written account about the Hauts, a family of bakers who understand that the secret to good bread is patience, skill, and the ability to adapt. With the era of rapid industrialization as a backdrop, we follow the Hauts as they expand and navigate the highs and lows of a changing society. Reading these pages was truly time well spent.”
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